Page 72 of My Tiny Giant
My heart beat wildly in my chest as I watched him go out of sight. It wasn’t the first time we had parted, but I hated the feeling of seeing him go more than ever.
I grabbed the white-coveralls Voranian by his sleeve before he had a chance to leave through the doors, too. “How long is it going to take?”
“Um, about an hour?” He blinked at me then glanced down at my fingers clutching the material of his sleeve. “Maybe two.”
“What’s your name?”
“Mine?” He frowned. “Why?”
“Just in case.” In case I needed to track him down to demand answers if General Hicrai succeeded in his desire to detain Agan or if anything else went wrong.
“My name is Professor Kidreks.” He straightened his back and freed his sleeve from my grip. “I’m the lead of the team assigned to examine the research conducted by Professor Voltuds, including the experiment he performed on the lieutenant. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” With a brief nod, Professor Kidreks followed the gurney that had taken Agan away.
General Craxus left, too.
“Madam Nowak—” General Hicrai approached me as soon as the doors behind them had closed.
“Lieutenant Nowak,” I corrected mechanically, my gaze glued to the white doors that now separated Agan and me.
“Whatever,” the general huffed, hulking over me. “I don’t know what kind of a relationship you have with Lieutenant Drankai or why he would enter into any kind of agreement with you. However, I would like to remind you that you have absolutely no authority over one of our warriors. There are no agreements between Tragul and Earth—marriage or otherwise. The peacekeeping contract that you’re working under comes from the military agreement signed between Earth and Neron. You have no rights on Tragul and can lay no claim to any Ravil people.”
The general was putting me in my place. Sadly, he was right on all the points.
I squared my shoulders, meeting his stare straight on, even as I had to tilt my head all the way back for that. Like all Ravils, he was so much taller than me.
“I’m not laying any claims to Agan, General,” I said in a firm voice. “He is and always has been his own person. But I promise you,” I lifted my finger to emphasize my point, “if any harm comes to him because of your poor decisions or negligence, I won’t need to fall back on any agreements. I’ll personally hold you responsible.” I stabbed my finger through the air toward his chest plate. “And there’ll be hell to pay.”
* * *
“A RE YOU OKAY?” I ASKED Agan when we were finally on our own again.
A hired aircraft was taking us back to the building of the Liaison Committee and my apartment.
He gave me a non-committal shrug in reply.
Obviously, he wasn’t in the mood to talk. Normally, I’d back off and let the man be silent for a while if that was what he wanted. Considering that Agan had just gone through a medical evaluation after the freak experiment performed on him, I couldn’t remain silent. I had to know what was bothering him and whether I could help him in any way.
“How was it?” I asked.
He winced.
“Fine. Boring. Invasive. Nothing pleasant to rehash, really.” He leaned against the back of the seat, stretching his legs in front of him.
“Do they think there may be—” I continued carefully.
“A ‘cure’ or something like it?” he didn’t let me finish. “No.”
We sat in silence for a few moments.
“The only complete data they have to work with comes from the previous experiments of Voltuds,” he finally spoke again.
“The ones he performed on yirzi ?”
“Yes. The Ravils have located the lab and captured some of the yirzi .”
His gloomy expression bothered me.
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? I gave the little square thingy I took from the lab to Rick. Now, they have the access to all of that equipment. Did they figure out how to use it?”